Emmanuel Nwachukwu

Pastors push back against those who use faith to justify multiple marriages.

A pastor talking with two of his four wives in Bukavu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on March 20, 2022

CT PastorsSeptember 10, 2026

Guerchom Ndebo / Contributor / Getty

This summer, a new South African Netflix drama called The Polygamist resurrected the debate over multiple-partner marriages across the continent, dividing even some Christians. The 22-episode Zulu-language series chronicles the double life of a Johannesburg-based businessman with three wives—including one secret one—and a mistress.

The Polygamist chronicles the unraveling of the Gomora family and business empire due to his betrayals and the fallout after his wives discover he has a mistress. Released in June, the series picked up more than 23 million views in its first month, charting in the top 10 of most-viewed shows in 62 countries, including the US, and No. 1 in more than 20 countries. While some African Christians support watching The Polygamist with “healthy discernment” as entertainment, others argue that it could normalize behaviors such as polygamy.  Kenyan Christian influencer Tevin Macharia Mukabana said the show’s sexual content “awakens the very desires [Christians] are asking God to help…overcome.”

In sub-Saharan Africa, about 11 percent of people live in polygamous homes, while that percentage rises to 40 percent in West and Central Africa. Muslims and practicers of traditional religions make up a majority of polygamists. However, some Christians—and even pastors—participate as well, arguing that multiple marriages are part of the indigenous culture and claim the practice is not condemned in Scripture. Overall, about 3 percent of Christians in Africa are polygamous.

Still, most African churches oppose polygamy, and some pastors are bucking cultural norms by calling out polygamy, often due to their own painful experiences growing up in polygamous households.

Some critics of The Polygamist complained the series confuses polygamy and infidelity. But Joshua Bolaji, pastor of Welkom Baptist Church in South Africa and son of a polygamist, told CT that “infidelity is always there [in polygamy].”

Polygamy breeds conflict too. Bolaji recalled, as a 5-year-old sitting in his bedroom in Itire, Lagos State, Nigeria, feeling helpless as he watched “Big Mummy,” his father’s first wife, slap his mother during an argument.

“That experience stays with me till this day,” said Bolaji, who is now in his early 50s. Bolaji’s father, one of the founders and leaders at Mount Sinai Church in Ebute Metta, had three wives. The second wife died when he was young. Bolaji and his mother initially lived in a room within the church premises, across from the apartment Big Mummy shared with her four children.

“Everything was fine between us children, but there was always tension between our mothers,” Bolaji said.

In Nigeria, polygamy is recognized under customary law and makes up almost 30 percent of marriages: “Knowing people around me—including uncles with two to three wives—it was just okay. It wasn’t a strange thing. You see it as normal and accepting and part of everyday life,” Bolaji said.

Similarly, among the Zulu and Nguni peoples in South Africa, polygamy denotes wealth and social status. Former South African president Jacob Zuma—a custodian of the traditional beliefs and proud polygamist—currently has four wives, has been married six times, and has at least 20 children. Two of Zuma’s daughters served as executive directors of The Polygamist.

“They believe polygamy is their culture, which was inherited from their forefathers and so should be preserved,” said Revival Hlongwane, a Zulu. “Also [that] anyone who does not follow the practice will suffer harm.”

Hlongwane, a pastor at Riebeeckstad Baptist Church in Free State, South Africa, told CT that the cultural practice of polygamy is often influenced by African traditional religion. Hlongwane said adherents often believe their ancestral spirits command that they marry more than one wife: “It is a way to appease the spirits and keep them pleased. Such practices are still seen among Christians in these cultures.”

Hlongwane said the Bible’s design for marriage is a one-man-and-one-woman union, but he is cautious of calling polygamy sinful since he can’t point to a verse that calls it that directly. He chooses to describe it as unwise, since the narrative passages show the harm of polygamy through the stories of David, Abraham, and Solomon. 

“We only know the disadvantages of polygamy,” he said. “I don’t think there are advantages. I only see disadvantages.”

Much of the negative impact of polygamy falls on the vulnerable women and children. As early as 1979, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women called for the outlawing of polygamy due to its negative emotional and financial impacts on the wives and children. Last year, the Women’s Probono Initiative, a nonprofit advocacy group in Uganda, challenged polygamy’s constitutionality as “inherently discriminatory and degrading to women,” but a five-judge panel upheld the practice as a “religious and cultural expression.”

According to a 2018 Reuters report, children from polygamous homes are more prone to diseases, less likely to complete education, and more susceptible to sexual abuse and social vices like drugs and prostitution than those from monogamous homes.

Mariam Omar from Jos, Nigeria, was born into a polygamous family. Her mother was her father’s third wife of four but separated from him when Omar was just a baby. Omar faults his multiple marriages for the split. Later, her mother left her with grandparents and other relatives, who raised her. Omar said she felt abandoned and resented her parents. When she met her mother briefly in a marketplace at age 15, “I didn’t enjoy that motherly love as a child. I felt no love towards her or even took her as family. The anger had transformed into hatred.”

Omar became a Christian in 2021 after a family member shared the gospel with her. Omar said that since hearing about God’s forgiveness, she now seeks to extend it. Although her mother died last year after an illness, Omar hopes her experience may be God’s way of “touching” her father, who was once a Muslim and now is an African traditionalist.

“If God can forgive me, who am I not to forgive them?” she asked. “Polygamy is wrong and it affects others, but every day I pray that God [saves] him.”

Bolaji remembers that when he and his family moved to the United Kingdom in April 1980, he felt embarrassed when explaining to friends that his father had more than one wife. “I could only say that’s what they do in my culture,” he said. “That is what it is.”

Later, when he became a Christian at 16, Bolaji began questioning the practice. He wrote letters with indirect questions to his then-distant father. At age 20, Bolaji said he had a three-hour conversation with his father about polygamy.

“It was an opportunity for me to unburden myself,” he said. “But my father could only respond that it was their culture and understanding of Scripture then.”

His father didn’t fully change his mind, but Bolaji said he was willing to consider the biblical perspective. Others have steadily moved away from the practice. Nigeria experienced a 12 percent decrease in polygamy between 1990 and 2024. Some research suggests missionary efforts over the past century and greater economic independence for women have contributed to Africa’s cultural shift on the issue.

But some still hold onto the belief that polygamy can be justified. As recently as 2024, Nigerian pastor Joseph Apata drew public scrutiny when he revealed that he was married to three wives, claiming his marriages were divinely ordained and pointing to biblical examples like David and Abraham. Though he leads a church, Apata calls himself a prophet and not a pastor, arguing that prophets are not restricted to one wife.

Bolaji disagrees. Pointing to 1 Timothy 3:2, he argues that Paul “clearly restricts leadership to a man with one wife.”

“When pastors in my circle introduce each other, we tend to say, “I am a man of one wife,” he said, “Both jokingly and seriously, it is a way of flushing away any idea of the contrary.”

Now as a pastor in South Africa, Bolaji has had at least two conversations with Christians seeking to become polygamous. He is still shocked by pastors in polygamous marriages, some of whom keep “a city wife and then the rural wife or wives.”

Bolaji suggested economic needs sometimes drive the temptation toward polygamy. The poorest regions in Nigeria have the highest polygamy rates, and several times since he immigrated to South Africa, women looking for economic stability and a way to cope with the high cost of living have asked him to take them as a second wife.

Bolaji said he immediately rejects such proposals.

Bolaji noted that while many pastors oppose the practice, some still avoid addressing the issue from the pulpit. While he acknowledges complications when a polygamous man becomes a Christian and wonders if he should divorce his other wives, Bolaji emphasizes that pastors must instruct men who are already Christians against marrying more than one wife. He advises that new converts continue providing financially for their wives, adding they are welcome to join the church but cannot lead.

“There are areas where pastors are scared to touch because they are culturally sensitive,” he said. “But every culture has its area of sensitivity, and we shouldn’t avoid it.”

source https://www.christianitytoday.com/2026/09/christians-debate-polygamy-after-netflix-show-hits-no-1/